Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [76]
“Did I hear that you have mono?” she interrogated. “Isn't that the kissing disease? What sort of people have you been kissing?”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, that's so 1950s,” I said. “These days you should be happy if that's all I've got.”
Her dark roots jumped up in hair-raising alarm. “Why? Do you have something else? Something worse? Oh my God, are you pregnant?”
I find it somewhat amusing that my mother only thinks I'm pregnant at times when it would be physically impossible for me to be so.
“Not unless sperm have found a way to travel telepathically.”
She screwed up her face in the way she does when she has no idea what I'm talking about. It takes a lot of effort, as the botulism has rendered most of the muscles in her face useless.
“Then do you have a medical condition that I should know about?”
“I'm just not feeling well,” I said truthfully. “The city stresses me out. I just need some quality time here at home to rest and relax.”
She liked this argument, I could tell. She liked the idea of her home as a safe haven, so I continued.
“Especially since this is the last summer I'll ever get to spend in the place that created so many cherished memories . . .”
So that was three days ago. And I'm still here.
“Don't you have a job to return to?” my mom asked today while I was on the couch aimlessly channel surfing.
I was about to tell her that they were doing just fine without me when I saw a familiar face on the screen, sitting across from Oprah, chatting about his bestseller.
“Mom! That's my writing instructor from SPECIAL!”
“Oh?” she asked with a mix of curiosity and contempt. “The one who convinced you to turn down your full scholarship to Piedmont?” She focused on the screen anyway, since anyone talking to Oprah was worth a closer look, even in a repeat.
It is not hyperbolic to say that Samuel MacDougall altered the whole direction of my life. If not for his encouragement, and his letter of recommendation, I would not be at Columbia. Period. He was my writing instructor two summers ago at the Summer Pre-College Enrichment Curriculum in Artistic Learning, but has since gone on to literary fame and fortune. He was on Oprah to promote his latest novel, Acting Out, a tragicomic tour de force set in Manhattan bathhouses during the late seventies and early eighties, when AIDS was largely unknown and commonly referred to as “gay cancer.” I know it sounds depressing, but it's actually pretty damn funny, too. Like life.
“I almost read his book, you know,” my mom said.
“Well, almost doesn't count.”
“The premise was so depressing. AIDS! Who wants to read about that?”
“Enough people to put it on the New York Times bestseller list!” I snapped back.
“You know,” she said after watching him chat with Oprah for a minute or two. “Even though his book was all about being gay, he isn't so limp-wristed about it. That's the best kind of gay.”
I cringed, as I often do when I hear my mom embarrass herself without even knowing it, even if it's only in front of her own daughter. And what's worse is she felt the need to continue.
“Why do gays have to be so flamboyant all the time? It's just so off-putting.”
I am so often stunned by my mom's ignorance that remarks like that should fail to shock me anymore. But they do. With nauseating regularity. Here's the Pineville paradox: When I'm at school in the city, I don't feel particularly worldly or wise. It's only when I come back home that I remember exactly why I left.
“So the best kind of gay is when you're gay but don't look or act too gay,” I said, in need of clarification.
“Right,” she said, picking up the West Elm catalog. “Like that gay boy from Pineville who goes to Columbia . . .”
“Paul,” I said. “Paul Parlipiano.” My mom still had no idea that throughout high school I had moistened many pairs of panties fantasizing about Paul Parlipiano.
“Now, he's gay but he doesn't go around advertising it to people.”
“Why should he,” I gasped, breathless with exasperation, “when news of his sexual orientation spread around town faster than you can